11.07.2012

why obama won

I don't want to spill too much ink on this, but I do want to make essentially one point: postmortems on the right today are circling the idea that the demographics of the country have changed, and the GOP has failed to respond adequately to that. Both of these things are true, but I think they point to a more fundamental truth.

Obama won this election because he was running to be president of the country that actually exists. Romney lost because he was running to be president of a country that does not.

Obama was running to be president of a country that is getting browner, yes. But it's also a country that is becoming more secular and less moralistic. It's a country that has passed a tipping point on marriage equality (an issue on which the president himself has had to be dragged along.) It's a country that is about see the beginning of the end of prohibition here in Washington and down in Colorado.

It's a country that is tired of war, and has no appetite for a new one. It's a country that is catching onto the fact that supply-side economics is a fantasy. It's a country that has realized that there is no good reason for people to go without healthcare in the wealthiest civilization in human history.

I do not think one man or one party has all the solutions. But I know that simply saying "no" is not a solution at all.

The president has his work cut out for him. He always has. And I sincerely hope the Republicans left standing can find a way to bring their party into the 21st century.

1 comment:

I left the GOP when the neocons took over. Following them came the crazies. And I'm sorry - but I mean CRAZIES.

There was a guy in Arkansas who was defeated yesterday. His big issue? He wanted the death penalty for disobedient children.

In Indiana and Nebraska we have senatorial candidates who are basically saying to women, if you're raped that's what God wanted.

Even last night at work (I work overnight) there were the usual "I'm going to buy that Glock because this country is fucked now that that nigger is back in office," and "they just voted for him because people didn't want any riots" from Romney voters in the shop.

Wingnuts are certain 'they're coming for our guns" even though not one word was ever said in the last 4 years about gun control. Why not? "That's the plan," says the NRA. "Obama wants to lull us to sleep and then - you'll see - those submachine guns I use to kill deer will be confiscated."

Donald Trump will still be looking for the God damn birth certificate.

And let's teach children that humans walked with dinosaurs.

The GOP is insane. Not only did they run toward an America that doesn't exist, they marginalized and are continuing to marginalize themselves relative to the rest of - not only the country - but the rest of the world - which thinks they are a fucking joke. I base that on my son-in-law's family in Scotland who can't believe some of the hokey shit that exists "only in America" and is promulgated by the loony tunes Tea Party. The GOP has no concept of what it looks like - or what it makes America look like - to the rest of the world, because they can't see past their funny car in the demolition derby somewhere out in buttfuck Arkansas.

The GOP has no one to blame but itself. But self-criticism is a luxury they will not utilize, because they're right and everybody else is wrong. That's why they'll continue to be obstructionists for the next 4 years, why they will be the ones responsible for taking this country to the economic brink if they stonewall the budget process, and all they'll do is point the finger at the Muslim communist in the White House.

Self-criticism is not in their universe. So they'll drag the rest of us down to their shit hole just to "be right on the internet."